The present invention relates to a garment hook for a vehicle and particularly one which translates between a retracted position and an extended position in a nonlinear track.
Vehicles typically include garment hooks for the convenience of passengers. Such garment hooks frequently are integrated into grab handle bezels and permanently extend therefrom. There have been several proposals to provide flush mounted garment hangers which move between a retracted flush mounted position out of the way when not in use and an extended position, providing a significantly more functional garment hook when extended as opposed to such fixed garment hooks which tend to be relatively small. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,221,354 and 4,444,344 disclose garment hooks which pivot between retracted and extended positions, while U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,411,233 and 5,507,423 disclose push-push straight line linear garment hooks which latch between a retracted position within a vehicle headliner or roof area and an extended position for use. With modern vehicle designs, the space in the roof area behind the headliner of a vehicle is somewhat limited and linear push-push garment hooks require a significant amount of room which is frequently not available.
Also, the many retractable garment hangers proposed may require a significant number of parts and are somewhat complicated and prone to failure during long-term use. Further, the complicated configurations of some retractable garment hooks add significantly to the expense during manufacture, assembly, and installation in a vehicle.
Thus, there remains a need for a retractable garment hook which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture, easily assembled, and provides the desired storage and extension of the hook for providing a practical size garment hook when extended and which is unobtrusively flush mounted when retracted to a stored position.
The garment hook assembly of the present invention satisfies this need by providing a housing which can be injection molded and includes two halves hinged together which can be joined for surrounding and receiving a retractable garment hook during assembly. The garment hook and housing include a push-push, spring-loaded latch for translating the garment hook in a nonlinear path upon actuation and latching the hook into a retracted stored position when returned toward the vehicle headliner.
In the preferred embodiment of the invention, a rotary damper is coupled to the housing and engages the garment hook for damping the motion of the hook as it extends from a retracted position. The housing halves each include an arcuate slot which align with one another when the housing is folded over the garment hook to a closed position for receiving a pair of laterally extending spaced pins extending from the hook into the arcuate slots of the housing for guiding the motion of the garment hook along a nonlinear arcuate path as it extends from and retracts into the housing. Such motion allows the garment hook assembly to occupy a relatively compact space, and it can be mounted, for example, to the bezel of a grab handle employed in the vehicle.
These and other features, objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon reading the following description thereof together with reference to the accompanying drawings.